Söderfjärden

An impact crater just a stone’s throw away from the Vaasa market square

The Söderfjärden plain about 10 kilometer south of Vaasa is a rare place. Its history is amazingly long.

The Söderfjärden plain is the result of a meteorite impact about 520 million years ago. Its meteorite edges are well preserved. The aerial view of the crater and its surrounding rim has fascinated many spectators. The most beautiful meteorite crater in Finland has a diameter of about 5–6 kilometers and is more than 300 meters deep. Söderfjärden today is a fertile plain with pipe draining. It is a continuous large area of cultivation land, totally 2300 hectares.

Meteoria Söderfjärden is a unique visiting center in the middle of the most beautiful meteorite crater in Finland. In Meteoria there is an advanced exhibition telling the 520 million year long story of Söderfjärden from an impact crater to the agricultural and Natura 2000 area of today.

In this well-equipped astronomical observatory you can with a telescope study celestial bodies hundreds of millions of light years out into the universe.

Söderfjärden is not only a meteorite crater and a unique nature site, but there is also a bird-watching tower in the middle of the most important resting area for cranes in Finland. In Söderfjärden you can watch the cranes and other birds in their migration. As much as 8 000 cranes rest in Söderfjärden in the fall.

Only the rocks remember the secrets of the barren and beautiful archipelago which was created by during the ice age. The Kvarken Archipelago has been inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List as Finland’s only natural site.

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